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STOP PRESS: Formula Fusion - Next gen Wipeout - from ex Wipeout Devs.

Hi guys,

I thought I would post details of our new project - FORMULA FUSION. It features music produced by DUB FX and other cool urban artists, together with all sorts of other juicy offerings.

We have a few interesting spins on the core concept and we are pulling it back a little in terms of the Sci-fi ness of the art. To try and make it more RAW and Craft based - similar to the tech/teams in F1 - rather than loosing it's charm by dressing it up with generic far future style.

The tracks will all be honed by the community and we will give people the opportunity to join up to the Test Pilot program - something that made the Wipeout games what they are - LOTS of testing right from the off!! So, we are tentatively dipping our toe into the pool of wipeout fans to try and get some feedback, love, and support - and you have our promise to listen to what you say every step of the way. When we were developing the game we were all well aware that it was your baby as much as ours, so we want to get it right this time too! There is definitely a fine art to doing this sort of game, and our deep seated knowledge of what went right and what went wrong, what went into creating that visceral experience is the thing that will set this aside from other offerings.

Anyway - I loved working on Wipeout - it was the purest design/game experience of my career and I want to try and bring some of that purity back into the game. If I'm honest the brand needed a bit of a shake up, and I honestly think that we have something we can evolve into the next big AG experience - and to keep it less corporate and more indie. I will post up news and updates as things progress but here's a little glimpse of some early concept pre-viz work..

Looks nice, but I think a key aspect of wipeout is that it IS the future, ranging from simple anti gravity racing to crazy quakes all wrapped up in a nicely presented package of fun. Although not much is shown in that vid, i'm assuming since you mention F1 as well as reducing the sci-fi ness, i'm thinking race tracks will be made in a typical race track environment (read; stands, flat fenced of tracks and little environmental variation over the course of the track,… you know, the typical F1/ race car games). Wipeout has always been different in that aspect, flying through mountain ranges, apocalyptic and utopian areas, cities, and heck, even straight through a freaggin mall! It's crazy to think about such a thing when it comes down to it, but that's what makes it futuristic, it also allows for very dynamic track design, heavily banked, twisting tracks with hills going vertical and drops becoming jumps. It's anti gravity after all, exploit that concept, you're no longer as heavily restricted to this annoying thing called gravity

Another, in my opinion, major and very important thing is the variety in ships, each having their own completely different design from the other, it is, what i think allows pilots to get "a bond" with their ship, the visualisation, all ships are the same, but just have a different texture applied, it does distinct one from the other, but it makes it less interesting. Not sure if ships will be equal in performance or not, if they aren't and all ships look the same, then it's only numbers/sliders that make a ship different and you wont get that feeling of, this is my favourite ship, i love flying this thing and will show that it can outperform others just as well! Wether you picked Feisar because it had that typical japanese tint to it, Harimau for it's smooth curves, Mirage cuz it's cute as hell, Piranha for looking badass, Triakis for being military themed, or any other ship for a different reason, one can relate/reflect him/herself upon their ship, it's like implementing personalisation into the game, without implementing it (the usual emblems/ textures).
They don't have any tweaking either, (except for the difference between HD/Fury then, but those are still quite fixed anyway), there's no need to make it complex like that, it's something that actually annoys me in most racing games, all kinds of hassle to figure out the best setup, and once you find it, you're sticking to it, pointless imo

Would love to hear more on the mechanics, as i don't want to criticize without knowing what the idea is (weapons or not? Mostly flat tarmac or not? Anti gravity as in, you can go flying, or anti gravity as in you're hovering above the track? Arcade or futuristic simulator? Speed or power?, …) Things you may not be able to disclose as you don't want to give away the concept, but some of those are rather important in defining the racing genre

As a summary, i think art & design(shapes, but also tracks) will play a very big roll in defining wether you'll be going for more of a race car game, or a futuristic racing game (as well as some of the main mechanics, but i cannot comment on those as we don't know them, yet )

Looking forward to hear about the development

Cipher

ps i dunno about the game title, would ditch the racing in it so the focus lies on SlamJet rather than on Racing ( a more common and understood word(->) plain, therefor grabbing all attention)
pss sounding maybe a bit negative, but that might just be the case since i'm not exactly sure what the overall concept is, i really support you guys, and it's nice to see that that your team is asking for input/feedback before the game is 80% through development, really, much support & love <3
pps if available, i think wide shot concept art could explain it better and give an overall feel (takes less time than 3D production as well, props to the artists though, looks good (Devs too, but we can't see that yet ))

EDIT; well i wrote this before the update, but that preview shot helps a lot , liking the feel, i wouldn't really call that stepping away from sci-fi though lol, kind of glad with that
The HUD isn't very readable though and looks a little, i don't know what the word is i'm looking for, but childish? maybe? i dunno, think it might be better not to have all separate, individual hud elements, a simple designed frame surroung it would already help a lot, but i would try make it more fluid And if you can't seem to make the transition from 1 element to the other, you still have the bottom 2 corners you know, in my opinion, a better place for the HUD as, when racing, you need to look ahead and you'll get distracted by the hud, you rarely ever look at the bottom of the screen, as it's trac that you've already past and is therefor no longer of importance, indicators such as speed, laps and throttle become trivial as they are non essential information (unless it's some kind of endurance race with a significant amount of laps)
But looks good! Personally i don't think i'd go with reflective track surface, but that might just be me, ask around

Feedback - thanks guys..

Originally Posted by Cipher

Looks nice, but I think a key aspect of wipeout is that it IS the future, ranging from simple anti gravity racing to crazy quakes all wrapped up in a nicely presented package of fun. Although not much is shown in that vid, i'm assuming since you mention F1 as well as reducing the sci-fi ness, i'm thinking race tracks will be made in a typical race track environment (read; stands, flat fenced of tracks and little environmental variation over the course of the track,… you know, the typical F1/ race car games). Wipeout has always been different in that aspect, flying through mountain ranges, apocalyptic and utopian areas, cities, and heck, even straight through a freaggin mall! It's crazy to think about such a thing when it comes down to it, but that's what makes it futuristic, it also allows for very dynamic track design, heavily banked, twisting tracks with hills going vertical and drops becoming jumps. It's anti gravity after all, exploit that concept, you're no longer as heavily restricted to this annoying thing called gravity

Another, in my opinion, major and very important thing is the variety in ships, each having their own completely different design from the other, it is, what i think allows pilots to get "a bond" with their ship, the visualisation, all ships are the same, but just have a different texture applied, it does distinct one from the other, but it makes it less interesting. Not sure if ships will be equal in performance or not, if they aren't and all ships look the same, then it's only numbers/sliders that make a ship different and you wont get that feeling of, this is my favourite ship, i love flying this thing and will show that it can outperform others just as well! Wether you picked Feisar because it had that typical japanese tint to it, Harimau for it's smooth curves, Mirage cuz it's cute as hell, Piranha for looking badass, Triakis for being military themed, or any other ship for a different reason, one can relate/reflect him/herself upon their ship, it's like implementing personalisation into the game, without implementing it (the usual emblems/ textures).
They don't have any tweaking either, (except for the difference between HD/Fury then, but those are still quite fixed anyway), there's no need to make it complex like that, it's something that actually annoys me in most racing games, all kinds of hassle to figure out the best setup, and once you find it, you're sticking to it, pointless imo

Would love to hear more on the mechanics, as i don't want to criticize without knowing what the idea is (weapons or not? Mostly flat tarmac or not? Anti gravity as in, you can go flying, or anti gravity as in you're hovering above the track? Arcade or futuristic simulator? Speed or power?, …) Things you may not be able to disclose as you don't want to give away the concept, but some of those are rather important in defining the racing genre

As a summary, i think art & design(shapes, but also tracks) will play a very big roll in defining wether you'll be going for more of a race car game, or a futuristic racing game (as well as some of the main mechanics, but i cannot comment on those as we don't know them, yet )

Looking forward to hear about the development

Cipher

ps i dunno about the game title, would ditch the racing in it so the focus lies on SlamJet rather than on Racing ( a more common and understood word(->) plain, therefor grabbing all attention)
pss sounding maybe a bit negative, but that might just be the case since i'm not exactly sure what the overall concept is, i really support you guys, and it's nice to see that that your team is asking for input/feedback before the game is 80% through development, really, much support & love <3
pps if available, i think wide shot concept art could explain it better and give an overall feel (takes less time than 3D production as well, props to the artists though, looks good (Devs too, but we can't see that yet ))

EDIT; well i wrote this before the update, but that preview shot helps a lot , liking the feel, i wouldn't really call that stepping away from sci-fi though lol, kind of glad with that
The HUD isn't very readable though and looks a little, i don't know what the word is i'm looking for, but childish? maybe? i dunno, think it might be better not to have all separate, individual hud elements, a simple designed frame surroung it would already help a lot, but i would try make it more fluid And if you can't seem to make the transition from 1 element to the other, you still have the bottom 2 corners you know, in my opinion, a better place for the HUD as, when racing, you need to look ahead and you'll get distracted by the hud, you rarely ever look at the bottom of the screen, as it's trac that you've already past and is therefor no longer of importance, indicators such as speed, laps and throttle become trivial as they are non essential information (unless it's some kind of endurance race with a significant amount of laps)
But looks good! Personally i don't think i'd go with reflective track surface, but that might just be me, ask around

Thanks Cipher, this is all great - thank you very much! Let me see if I can answer some of your points.

We are going to cater for those that just want to pick up and race but we also want people to be able to personalise their race experience by tailoring their craft, more for single player race leagues - if you want to be a combative weapons racer you can concentrate on weapons tech, if you want to be a speed demon then you can look at boost technology, if you want perfection then you can look at balance systems. There will be different race classes and it will be less about finding that perfect set up and rather more about developing a craft that suits your style of play and the track you have chosen.

The game is more about science and technology colliding with the world of AG racing. There is a research element and teams will have a distinctive vibe - with some teams finding it easier than others to research particular areas and some teams starting off with slight advantages.

I don't know about you but I could ace some of the tracks I played but they each had a slight different personality to them, on some of the bends I would have liked a bit more control to shave that extra second off for example. It almost became intuitive.. lost in the experience. As you progress through the leagues you will be able to advance through different craft - working your way up to the GHOST leagues, which includes alien craft and associated technology specific to each team. We want to take this game to the next level and really push the speed aspect so there will be a lot of experimentation with the HUD to get the balance of hud based and track based navigation just right, considering the speeds we want to get out of the game. The idea is to make it truly visceral..

We are not going to take the game into the far future where style and functionality can become lost in translation, we want to take it into a gritty world with deep contrasts and cool environment fx, whilst giving it it's own distinctive look and feel. But it will still have the high tech flavours we have all become accustomed to. We have some 'really' cool talent on board with this including some big names from the movie industry to really push the art direction. Although you are right, it is all about the game play - but as with the original wipeout - that's something that took months of testing to purify.

A lot of what you see is still WIP and we are keen to engage with the community to tighten up all aspects so we get that killer game. That goes for the track and layout too. We have plans for lots of cool things including the track being dynamic so it can relay light and hazard information based on where you are and also project holographic pickups etc.. All weighted to add to the race experience rather than just art for arts sake.

This is just a start to the creative process, which needs to be evolutionary so we tightly hone the end result..

Thanks Cipher, means a lot.

P.s. We will see what the reaction to the name is and make a decision later..

Take a look at this (again WIP):

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Jonny

I still wonder...what´s the name of...this track ^^

It is DUB FX and 'Run', off his second album 'Harmony'. He is going to produce the music - incredibly talented and a great guy to boot!!!

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by dreadofmondays

YESSSSS
this looks incredible guys! Best of luck with everything, hope it goes well for you!

Thanks Matey - we are just trying to keep the flame alive, and to be honest, I need to enjoy making games again, like I did in the 90's and early 00's.. There just isn't anything that can mirror the wipeout dev experience for me. Now we have lined up all the talent to give it a good shot, fingers crossed! Respect to you for Slipstream GX! We are looking more next gen with this - to have fun with shaders n stuff :-)

what platforms will this be on because this looks like something i would play the living crap out of it looks gorgeous same for the machinics look fantastic have nice day and btw i can't wait for it

Thanks a ton!

We are planning to go out on PC Steam initially (because we think it's about time there is something like this for PC Gamers) with PS4 and Xbox One 'soon' afterwards - oh and we are looking at VR too

VR has some cool possibilities - I reckon we can get it to the point that you get nose bleeds from the speed, just like the original Wipeout ads that were banned lol!! - we have an Oculus Dev kit (raises finger to lips - sssh!).

and you've 'Red Bull' involved somehow so the money is there
please implement force feedback racing wheel support, that's the only needed feature wipeout is missing so far. so, if your game would feature it, i would buy it for sure.

edit: cockpit view with all the gizmos and stuff would be appreciated too...

edit2: i must say i like the tronesque touch of the racing helmets of your drivers

We are planning to go out on PC Steam initially (because we think it's about time there is something like this for PC Gamers) with PS4 and Xbox One 'soon' afterwards - oh and we are looking at VR too

VR has some cool possibilities - I reckon we can get it to the point that you get nose bleeds from the speed, just like the original Wipeout ads that were banned lol!! - we have an Oculus Dev kit (raises finger to lips - sssh!).

Best,
R8 Team

i just can't wait for it i might just get the Oculus for this game and when is the launch window exactly i shall be closely following theses updates sincerely a fan of slamjet YYEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWW
EDIT will weight play an affect on craft behavior i.e a heavy craft will be slow and when it lands from a jump it will not be as bouncy and vice a versa for light crafts and are sponsorship deals you can secure also can you make decisions on craft development or is it just an upgrade system oh yeah two more things can you change the colors of your craft and does your play style affect public reactions and your teams look ie if you play very aggressively destroying crafts left right and center people might hate you and other pilots might fear you oh will there be interviews for your character and dialog choices during said interviews last thing will there be like and underdog team and a top dog one and will there be an economy bye